In recent years, soft-sided luggage has gained popularity and is in many cases replacing traditional hard-sided luggage. The light weight and lower cost of such soft-sided luggage have contributed to this popularity, and one of the most common types of such luggage is the duffel bag. The duffel bag is capable of being collapsed when not in use thereby minimizing the amount of storage space required. In addition, the soft sides of the duffel bag enable it to be readily manipulated to change the shape thereof and squeeze the duffel bag into tight confined spaces.
One of the most popular sizes of duffel bags is the larger so-called official olympic size of about 26 inches in length, 13 inches in height and 13 inches in width, which provides the same cubic area of a large 27 inch hard-sided piece of luggage. A drawback of all duffel bags, and especially the larger duffel bags, is the fact that the soft sides of the bag continually cave in when a person is trying to pack articles into the bag or remove articles from the bag. This is due to the fact that there is no support for the side walls of the bag. This is very frustrating and in many cases leads to "stuffing" articles into the duffel bag rather than neatly packing them into place. The collapsing side walls of such a bag inhibit orderly packing or unpacking since one hand must be used to hold the bag open, and a person can only use one hand to manipulate the articles. When one wants to remove an article that is not on top, he usually messes up the orderly arrangement of other articles as the desired article is pulled free.
It is a particular objective of the present invention to effectively solve the problem of collapsing soft side walls of a duffel bag by providing means for supporting the side walls in position when desired, while at the same time retaining the ability of the duffel bag to be deformed so as to be squeezed into irregular shaped areas.